lomaany wrote:Which is "best"…3D MAX vs. Blender? I want to learn 3d modeling and animation but I'm not sure which one I should become proficient at? I can't believe one is completely free (blender) and the other costs around 2000 dollars (3d max). What’s the catch?

It appears that Blender is written in Python script whereas 3DS Max, being a commercial program, was probably written in a lower level language such as C++.
Python is much easier to write programs in but at the cost of system performance (computation speed). Some speed tests have shown that carefully written Python can be almost as fast as C++ but other tests have shown it takes 40 times as long to compute certain problems.
The practical differences would be the amount of detail you can work with in real time before your computer bogs down and of course in rendering time.
Blender might take a lot longer than 3DS Max to render a high detail scene on a home computer but it can usually still get the job done if you give it long enough and don't have anything else running in the background.
I personally prefer Blender. Its free and I find it more aesthetically pleasing and funner to work in. Plus the loads of free video tutorials that you can find online for it help a ton!

The absolute truth is definitely discoverable in many situations. Don't give up because people disagree.

t appears that Blender is written in Python script whereas 3DS Max, being a commercial program, was probably written in a lower level language such as C++. Python is much easier to write programs in but at the cost of system performance (computation speed). Some speed tests have shown that carefully written Python can be almost as fast as C++ but other tests have shown it takes 40 times as long to compute certain problems. The practical differences would be the amount of detail you can work with in real time before your computer bogs down and of course in rendering time. Blender might take a lot longer than 3DS Max to render a high detail scene on a home computer but it can usually still get the job done if you give it long enough and don't have anything else running in the background. I personally prefer Blender. Its free and I find it more aesthetically pleasing and funner to work in. Plus the loads of free video tutorials that you can find online for it help a ton!

Blender is not written in Python but rather is written in high performance C. The user scripting language within Blender has integrated Python to improve ease of use. It is possible that the rendering in 3DS is faster or perhaps higher quality in a particular application however there is nothing inherent in Blender that limits its quality or speed.

The analogy is that Blender is open source like Linux and 3DS is proprietary like Windows. There are advantages to each. However unless you are a large well funded studio with extremely tight build cycles, it is likely that Blender is the way to go.